


Shadows

by entanglednow



Category: Bedlam (TV)
Genre: M/M, Nightmares
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-05-01
Updated: 2011-05-01
Packaged: 2017-10-20 21:24:51
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 646
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/217235
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/entanglednow/pseuds/entanglednow





	Shadows

Jed's room is cold. The chill of winter permeating the whole room and leaving the air crisp, though it was Summer when Jed went to bed. When he went to sleep? He doesn't remember. Jed spends too much time somewhere other than his own head. He worries one day that he'll lose himself completely. That he'll end up broken, the way that matters. Unable to tell what's real and what isn't.

The bed makes a noise, faint and strange, and there's a weight on Jed's thighs, fingers on his biceps. He can feel the warmth of skin that he's sure wasn't there before. He never heard anyone come into his room, time sliced away like it was never there.

He hears the faint beginning of a laugh against his mouth, soft, familiar. When he lifts a hand he finds a strong, heavy curve of neck, and short ends of hair. It's harder to grip than Kate's. But the kiss is easier. It opens up straight away, no hesitation, no guilt. Just wet flesh and aggression. Uncomplicated, rough, easy. Jed doesn't normally go for men, it's too difficult to have a relationship at the best of times. He's different enough already, has enough problems. He eases back, just enough to see, to be certain.

It's Ryan, mouth open, shoulders curled forward, where his hands are still loose on Jed's upper arms.

"What are you doing here?" Jed asks, licks his lips because he can't help it.

Ryan tips down, the light hits his nose, and hair, leaving his eyes in shadow. They're just gone, leaving Jed with lines and darkness stretched over him.

"What do you see?" Ryan asks. There's a vibrating edge to his voice, something that skims too close to demand.

"Ryan -" Jed stops talking, distracted by the flicker and shift of Ryan's shadow on the wall. It's larger than it has any right to be, shoulders high and dark. They should be smeared lines on the plaster but instead there's a faint drift to the darkness. An illusion, something's pouring off his skin, spilling darkness out across the wall.

Jed's gaze switches between Ryan and his shadow as it crawls higher up the wall, edges out and up, like he's growing. Whatever's inside opening up and crawling out.

"What do you see?" Ryan's voice demands, gone low and rough like it's been underground for years -

Jed wakes in darkness to the sound of his own breathing. Hoarse, shaky intakes of breath that sound laboured, as if something was pressing down onto him, crushing him. He pulls himself to a sit, shoving the sheets away to get air on his skin. There's no light to cast shadows. The room's sticky-hot.

There's a shape in his bedroom doorway.

Ryan, in a vest and shorts, frowning at him over a mug of something that steams.

"You alright?" Ryan asks, quietly, then winces, like he can feel the edge of Jed's dream.

"Yeah," Jed says, too quickly.

Ryan raises an eyebrow and looks nothing like threatening. But the dream seems reluctant to leave him, edges clinging like ivy to Jed's skin. Ryan comes into the room like Jed called him, sits down and looks at him, like he can see all of Jed's hard edges. Worry making his forehead crease.

Jed shifts forward on the bed, springs denting, then relaxing. Ryan's mouth is half open when he presses his own against it. It's not like the dream. It's clumsy, made of strange angles, and Ryan tastes like coffee and surprise. But he's kissing him back, stunned little noise in his throat that sounds like arousal. It's...not what Jed was expecting. He lets it go on for longer than he should.

The mug Ryan's holding tilts, spills.

Ryan swears and jerks back, holds the dripping mug away from Jed's bed, biting his lip and shaking his other hand.


End file.
